Aries

A time for beginnings. Full moon, bright and clear in Aries. The baby of the zodiac. The fire. The ram. Time to say bye bye to old cobwebs.

I’m very happy to have this ram that left its golden fleece celebrated tonight in this hesper – this evening – as we sing hesperinos to a handkerchief.

TC has never struck me as a mystic. But the timings are aligned. And he keeps using the word “ritual” about this story we are making. So yeah, let’s lean into that. The stars are in order. We are beginning our run at a time when the astral light is highlighting the start of the zodiac once more. Round and round we go, in this one, out of this one, in something else, whatever, wherever, Aaaaaaaaa, yay, ping, SCABLUTZZ. It’ll be like that until we manage to arrange it to die in Varanasi which currently is the only option that scares the shit out of me as I’ve got things to do. If I can avoid it I will literally never go to Varanasi, but that’s because I’m not ready to end my karmic cycle. If you die there, as far as I understand, that’s it for the round and round. People go there to die on purpose. They must be so sure that all the ends are closed. I’ve been round and round and round and have no sense that it’ll ever be finished enough for that. If I got booked for a movie lead shooting in Varanasi, no matter how many stunt doubles there were I’d assume it was a setup by the ORDER to bring things back to quiet. Nah. There’s chaos to be sewn, life to be l/o/i/ved – here, right here on this bank and shoal of time.

Othello the character is very Aries. I wanted to dig into the source material, as the Henslows wanted to make money and this Shagspar writer/actor they found was gonna do better if people already knew the story. Back then stories were more central than identities. Now we are swamped in story so we look at the the people making it. “Gerlok Fuck is playing Hamlet! I must attend.” Back then it was “The tale of Capitano Moro is being related in a new more detailed telling than ever before.” Shakespeare took an idiot’s polemic and gave it his unique treatment. He shaped it up as a human story, and arguably recrafted a source material with a bad agenda into a play that shows us step by step how we can trust our way into madness. It isn’t a play that does well with cuts, as the more you lose the harder it is to empathise with his journey, but Iago is so unnervingly bad for so little reason… No wonder lovely Lodovico makes fucking sure that he is not just tortured but kept alive through it for as long as possible.

Two shows today and I’m finally not pushing so much but still on a journey. It’s hard to take the pressure off, finally being here at the RSC. Here’s part of my journey here – apologies, it carries old wounds now dealt with:

I’m happy to be sharing a dressing room with Scott and finally feeling the end of that twenty year old mess of feelings.

I’m very very happy to be here doing this show with these humans. It’s funny how morale can be higher in tragedies. What a glorious group of actors we have, here. No showboaters, no baddies. The morale always trickles down from the top and John is an actor’s actor, as are Will, Juliet and Annie. TC is the gubernator who cares about the ship he’s guiding. James is a musical genius, Spike is Tim’s Lou. A movement director, a physical eye, someone to bring the brain and body together. I’m so proud to be part of this team. With the naiveté of the Aries full moon, I’m gonna put it out there that this can be the START of something glorious. Aries is the start of the zodiac. Here so go. Somewhere things are clicking into place.